Caturday

Zuleme on Etsy

2009-12-02T07:32:00.000-08:00

This is what I am busy with these days, adding my jewelry designs to my new shop on Etsy. Caturday readers probably don't know that I have been a jeweler for over thirty years. My mother is a jeweler too. I got really really burned out on it after working really hard with it, making a good living and wholesaling my work across the country, doing trade fairs and craft fairs and having a small retail shop.

Then we started a video business and it was just too much so I was glad to quit. The tools sat in the attic for years. I got them out, set them up, and packed them away again at least three times until, one day, I made a pair of earrings and realized it was fun again. Also, my mother and sister opened a gallery on Cape Cod and I wanted to try to help out by consigning some work. That helped get me going.

It helps that I have a great camera and with Olof's help I can take good photos. Things have changed since the old days of film and slides.

But I don't want to over due it again and lose the fun of it. So no craft fairs and no wholesaling. Just making what I want to make and posting it on line.

Please come visit and see my work.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/Zuleme

And the jewelry blog will be over at Zuleme.com

So winter begins...

2009-11-29T09:11:00.000-08:00

I was rather chagrined to see, when I happened to look at my stats, how many people have still been faithfully stopping by here even though I haven't posted for over a month. Unless it's all robots just adding me to their endless collection of data.

What have we been doing? In October we had a splendid and lively party for a collection of Libra's including my MIL. We harvested plenty of vegetables from the garden and put it to sleep for the winter. We watched the leaves turn and went out to shoot video of the spectacular scenery we enjoy in New England. And just lately we took the Cog Railway to the summit of Mount Washington on a clear and yet warm day to begin collecting video for projects for them.

Olof fixed up the furnace room and put in a small shop in which he is designing pieces for high end video cameras. I started making jewelry again and got some to both my local League of NH Craftsmen shop and to my mother's gallery in Sandwich Ma. And I am getting ready to post pieces to a shop on Etsy.

This winter I have a lot of editing to do and we have some video shooting lined up. Right now we are waiting for snow and eyeing the Big Rock (Mount Washington) which I can see is white with snow though here in the valley we are still brown.

I will also restore some of my tee shirt designs on Cafe Press and I'll be working on printing some of those designs for jewelry.

The photo above is of Harper and Ramona their first winter here, back when they still cuddled together. They are now almost grownup cats, Harper is a hefty fourteen pounds while Ramona, who rules the household, is a svelte ten. They are endlessly entertaining and loving felines and usually I wake up with one of them cuddled up next to me.

It will be another long winter here in the Frozen North.

Thanks for stopping by, all of you. I should have time for more posting and to catch up on photos. There are plenty.

I dream of France

2009-09-27T10:48:00.001-07:00

A few days ago I woke up and Ramona was having a bad dream. Errrrr, Errrrr, Errrrrr, she was moaning with that anxious edge to it.

I reached over and petted her to wake her up gently. Mona, we're here, I said.

"I dreamed you were in France!" she said.

It sure seems like a dream. Funny how time is when you live in a body. On August 27th I knew I'd be going to France the next day. And, unbelievably, we drove to the airport with our French students and we all boarded planes for France. They met us at CDG (we couldn't get on the same plane) and they helped us find our way to the TGV. Three hours after that we were in Avignon, got our rental car and 45 minutes after that we were being greeted at the house by our friends who had rented it.

And we proceeded to have a wonderful week of bicycling and dining and wine drinking. Then we drove north to visit friends in Brittany and then, before we knew it, we were back home. wow.

Harper and Ramona had a full time kitty sitter so they could have their schedule undisturbed. She checked the fence everyday and at 6 PM got them in for dinner. I had recorded myself calling them in and that worked great for the first night but after that Miss R was too smart. She knew I wasn't home and she didn't have to obey anyone other than Big Cat Momma. But all was well. I was greeted with cries of joy from R and a huge purr from H and all is now back to what passes for normal around here.

The beans? Oh yes, that's my harvest of kidney beans from a patch of bad soil which up to now wouldn't grow much. I'm quite pleased with them.

Health Care and the Creative Economy

2009-08-19T19:08:00.000-07:00

I live in northern New Hampshire where there are few good jobs (up here a good job is one that pays more than minimum wage and has benefits), but a large population of what is known as the creative class. Most creative types are self employed. And we are some of the people that any health care reform plan will help because our situation could not be worse. As our insurance agent put it "You're thrown to the sharks."

Go to a craft fair or into any artisan's shop. Potters, glassworkers, jewelers, painters, printmakers, weavers, woodworkers. Or the charming little mom and pop stores that tourists love to see here in New England. And include the creative types writing software or designing web sites. And musicians, actors, photographers, writers, and videographers like myself and my husband. We are the people who have to buy those individual health insurance policies with the sky high deductibles. The policies that don't pay for any preventive care and under which we will still probably go bankrupt if either of us get ill and cannot work.

The last time I was at a major craft fair everyone was looking older. I wonder if any young people are going into arts or if it is just too hard to make a living at it, especially if they want to have children. We don't make a lot of money but we live well by working hard, doing all of our home maintenance and building ourselves and rarely taking vacations. It's a great life, but not a wealthy one. And we don't have children.

We've always carried health insurance and we've been lucky to be healthy. We work at it, we exercise, eat well, we're outdoors working a lot. We can easily bicycle 25 miles and the same on skis. But once we got past fifty our premiums aimed for the sky and we had to keep raising our deductible so that we could afford any insurance at all. Currently we have a policy with a 10,000 dollar deductible that costs us 7,000 a year. With dental and eye care we are spending over 8,000 a year on health and that's while we're healthy. Any insurance agent that thinks they can do better for us doesn't even bother to call back. The situation is the same for many of our friends. Health insurance is now our single biggest expense. And a single root canal (around 800.00) or illness raises the total.

When a doctor recommends something like a colonoscopy (1300.00 each) mammograms ( a couple hundred) , yearly check ups, cholesterol tests or any other kind of expensive screening, well, we're already spending a good chunk of our income just to keep our insurance. The last time I went to the doctor's office with a bad stomach ache, the nurse suggested I have a blood test (400.00) to check my electrolytes. I said couldn't I just go home and drink some Gatorade and she agreed.

And if one of us actually got sick? Who knows how long and how much our insurance would actually pay? The few times I've had a doctor send an invoice to the insurance company (to add to our deductible in case anything happened in that year), I've noticed that the company doesn't allow the whole amount. So I just imagine what would happen if one of us needed cancer treatment or surgery. With an individual policy, we are the ones the company can drop for "pre-existing conditions". If we were lucky we'd get some coverage until renewal time. And who knows what we would have to pay out of pocket as the company refuses to pay the amount billed. And how stressful it would be fighting to get the bills paid. The one time we did file a claim against our (at that time) 5,000 deductible, was when my husband was sent to our regional hospital by ambulance with a life threatening case of pneumonia. He had woken up at 4 AM coughing blood. It was our doctor's decision that he needed to be in the intensive care unit at the larger hospital. Our insurance refused to allow the charge saying he wasn't ill enough to be in the hospital. That's how much you can trust insurance companies.

We did have one time when the insurance company paid their share with a problem and that was when my husband had hand surgery. We paid 5,000 and they paid 8,000. The surgeon had good office people who knew how to deal with the paperwork and everything went through.

I am hoping that health insurance reform will include something that will help us and other artists and self employed across the country. I am hoping for a public plan. One of my fears is that we will simply not be able to afford the premium raises coming along in the years between 60 and 65 and that we will be without insurance and vulnerable to losing everything we have worked so hard for all our lives.

I don't understand the people screaming at meetings about how they don't want health care reform so that everyone has care. I've lived in Canada and Sweden and no one there has to imagine that they could go bankrupt if they get sick. Our system is barbaric and cruel, with some having everything they need and others left to suffer.

Those of us supporting health care reform are posting today August 20th. Check in with www.timegoesby.net for more stories.
And add your own if you can.

Catching up on Cats

2009-07-19T18:18:00.001-07:00

Kitten season is in full swing. These guys should find homes, it's the older ones that I hope will also go. The sociable adult cats can move into the community room, which houses about ten in peaceable comfort with climbing trees and cubby holes to nap in. Of course, I have always gone for kittens but as I get older it is only right that if I adopt any more cats (No!, says Ramona) they should be adults.
Someone dropped fourteen cats and kittens off at the shelter either at night or just without warning. One is a Himalayan I haven't seen yet.

Tootsie

Simon

Raul, an elegant House Panther if I ever saw one.

Oscar, obviously a real character here.

Mai

Leo

Felix

Cameron

In the Garden

2009-07-08T05:39:00.001-07:00

Hello friends who have not given up on me since my lack of posts for over a month. Here for you is a tour of the garden on a rare sunny day in June. It has been raining for over six weeks here and we are all waterlogged and somewhat gloomy but in our Yankee way, resolute. The rain is pouring on the roof this morning and the felines are only opening one eye to say "what a fricking drag and jezzes christ." The garden has been growing, it is on a hill and well drained but what the sun loving tomatoes will do is anyone's guess. We do have onions, garlic greens, lettuce, peas, chard with beautiful stalks of pink and yellow and the last of the strawberries to gather before they rot. We did mulch them with straw but this summer, they should have had more. Any lying on the ground are grey and gone. The strawberry farm down the road is probably a disaster this year and the corn fields by the river are sodden with stalks only a few inches high. But here is a tour on a lovely, hopeful day in June. Everything has grown a lot since these photos.

The raised onion bed. Good thing it's raised and drains well. The purple flowers are Olof's beloved patch of chives.

The potato field with the squash just beginning. The elder's home below with their summer gazebo on the deck. The felines hide in the tall grasses behind the potatoes and keep watch. They also have catnip bushes to lie in and dream away the summer days. When it is not raining.

The path by the onions, well mulched this year. A good thing or the weeds would be knee high. They like lots of rain.

Another view, our house below.

The upper terrace above the terraces for strawberries, raspberries and blueberries. Potatoes can be seen and small broccoli, radishes and chard.

Olof lived in Brussels once and never forgot The Little Pisser.

The Tea House. Below it is a lovely ravine where the brook is rushing waterfalls this year. Olof built this one summer when I was away for a week. I should go away more often, eh?

Our beloved Brendan lies here by the upper pond with his brother Finnegan (known as Innigan Outigan Finnegan) and Silas the Faithful. Fergus is in an urn on the shelf, waiting for when we shall meet again at the Rainbow Bridge.

My favorite room in my home. We have dinner with friends here on summer evenings. When it is not pouring rain.

Hello to all, how's your summer?

Billie the Kid

2009-06-04T06:45:00.000-07:00

This little guy is in the group of four kittens in their own private room. He's not related to them. I don't remember the details of his story but he was injured and he might be deaf. He has a purr loud enough to make your heart vibrate.

He's the first kitten I've come across with a grade A Fergus personality. He climbed up on my shoulders and head while I was trying to get his photo, purring all the time and then he happily wanted to play play play.

He's a funny little thing with those extra toes. I'm sure he won't be at the shelter long, if any cat lover with the eyes to see how wonderful he is meets him.

Yes, I'd take him home in a blink of a kitty eye. And just think of the havoc it would create around here.

They steal your heart and break it into little kitty bits, don't they?

Atlas and Ollie

2009-06-02T09:03:00.001-07:00

These guys are too much. If I remember the story correctly, Ollie is the kitten found at a dumpster who survived being poisoned. A trap was set to catch him and huge Atlas was the surprise catch. It seems these two are bonded buddies and they are currently sharing a nice large condo with a screen porch at the shelter while they wait for someone who connects with them as a pair.

They're pretty darn nice if you ask me.

Instant family!

To the Shelter

2009-06-01T08:37:00.000-07:00

It's been ages since I had any time at all to run down to the shelter and get some photos. Nothing but a long list of video projects to get through. And now it's garden time. Harper and Ramona are seizing every second of the days in their fenced in yard. They wait for us to do boarder patrol in the morning (the bears are coming over the fence almost every night) and they know 6PM is dinner time and they (usually) come when I call them. By then they are ready to eat and run for a sleeping spot. They'll be crashed out until morning when they are ready to do it again.

I really believe cats need to be able to be outdoors in a safe way. They just come alive with the smells and sounds of the outside.

Little Lady waits for someone. When I entered the kitten room where there were four, the soft sound of purring rose to my ears. These guys are sweet.

And passes the time.
This is Janis, she is five and was found as a stray.

And Ziggy, who is ten.
And Priscilla whol had just arrived with siblings.

Dancer has moved into the community room, which gives him room to move around and be sociable with the other cats in there. When I was there he was sound asleep. It is a good place for him to be at this time.

Ramona

2009-05-05T06:28:00.000-07:00

Fooling around with my Canon this morning

Spring Comes and Everybody Wakes Up

2009-04-01T04:45:00.000-07:00

Spring finally begins to arrive up here in the Frozen North and we emerge into the light. Of course, we've been outside most of the winter skiing but now we can actually sit somedays with our summer chairs embedded in the receding snow. Olof gets out the camera and catches some of the action. There was a flock of turkeys too, to keep things lively, but the bear seems to have chased them off. We've all warned to take in the bird feeders in early spring, because once a bear learns to associate people with food they are in trouble. There's a large campground across the river. So no sympathy for hungry bears.

Cats for Obama Unite!

2009-03-05T06:29:00.000-08:00

Ok so this isn't about cats except it is about someone we think is a pretty cool cat, our President. This morning the NY Times posted two photos, one where his hair is black and one showing it as rapidly turning grey under the job stresses. Below is a link to the story on the Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/05/us/politics/05gray.html

Well. Olof knows a bit about photography, yanno. He looked at the two photos and saw that the exposure on the greyish one was way off for the skin tone. So he corrected the grey one and voila, no grey hair.

Above is the NY Times photo showing Obama with grey hair/

This is Olof's corrected photo matching the skin tone, voila, no grey hair.

What do all you cool cats think?

Shelter Photos

2009-02-28T05:41:00.001-08:00

Shooting with my new camera, a Canon 5D MK II. Things are quiet at the shelter before the coming storm of kitten season. Two pregnant moms currently in foster care. I hope the spay/neuter program has made a difference in the numbers this spring. Don't miss the story of Atlas and Ollie posted on the shelter's new blog

Vince

Phinneas

Ollie

Margret

Hemingway (the toes of course)

What February Brought

2009-02-14T14:48:00.000-08:00

This was taken a few days after we all arrived home from the thousand mile journey. Three years ago. They are grown up lovely, loving cats now. Ramona is still sweet and mysterious and wants to be with us. Harper is the huggiest boy cat I ever had. His favorite sleeping place is next to me with my arm around him. You can forgive a cat like that anything. Good thing, since when he is upset he sometimes poops on the rug. Yeah, I caught him doing it so I know it is not Ramona. As if Ramona would ever do anything so undignified.

I am just working my way through a pile of projects. I will be writing a full length video on steam trains. Should be fun. That is after I edit the German and French recordings.

The sun is higher now and it is the good time of winter. The buds on the trees are just starting to swell and the turkeys in the yard and figuring out who gets to keep the ladies. We have light from about 6:45 to after 5. It's nice. I got out the packets of seeds and I am trying to see which ones I think will germinate and which ones I really should buy fresh. I'm being thrifty, well as much as I can be.

We've been slogging through our winter routine here but it will end soon with the first day you can open the windows. That will probably be in March.

And then we'll fix the fence and everyone will stumble out into the sunlight. ahh spring is on the way out there somewhere.

Winter

2009-02-02T07:00:00.001-08:00

Harper and Ramona are raising heck this morning. How can two cats make such thundering paws? And there is a lot of mrrr mrrrs and floofy tails going on. I think it is spring fever since we saw a robin yesterday though the snow is way up over my knees.

Not a whole lot of news here, we're just working away and watching the snow pile up. I'll be editing the translation of my audio tour in German and French and then I have a large writing project that will take me to spring. And we are dealing with those tedious internet issues when you have a bunch of domain names and web sites.

The felines have adjusted fairly well to being indoors, though it drove Harper nuts at first. Sometimes we take him over to visit next door. He likes that.

I'll catch up with blogging when I have something that resembles free time.

Meow to all

Shelter VisitS

2009-01-06T04:49:00.000-08:00

Things are fairly quiet at the shelter right now. Kitten season is over and there are empty cages. Dancer was pretty speakative, he is living in a ground floor condo and was lively when I was there, chirping and chortling. He is still having occasional seizures, sadly, and his urine is too dark. I hope he will get out of the shelter and be able to have some kind of a good life. Remember, he has been in the shelter since he was a young kitten. If any of you out there know how I can get enough money to build a sanctuary, let me know. The organization I work with (The Rozzie May Animal Alliance) really wants to do it. We can probably get land, bought or donated. I would like to have a place where cats like Dancer, who don't have good chances of being adopted, could have a decent life with room to roam and people to spend time with them. This would be a different set up from a shelter, with long term living arrangements for the felines.

Speaking of cats whose adoption chances aren't great, this is Abby, who has been returned. I hate to see cats coming back. Personally, I like cats with attitude, it shows they have pride and self respect. Every cat is an individual and if you want a relationship with them you have to understand them. A cat is not a dog! Abby can come to my sanctuary too.

There is one little room with six orange cats in it, all very scared, since they were rescued from a hoarding situation. Even though I would love to have more cats, it is better to understand how they get along and how they can get stressed if there are too many in a living place. Just like people! So all six of these beautiful cats have those big scared eyes. This is Tootsie.

It is a challenge as a photographer to go into a room (with pink walls) and try to get a decent photo of a frightened cat. You can't really do them justice, you just have to try to get something that shows their beauty and help them get adopted over Petfinder. Her name is Juniper.

This little girl cat should get adopted pretty quickly. Her chances are good. Sweet Josephine.

And another scared cheese kitty named Saffron. (I'm just mad about Saffron) If you know who sang that song then you are my age.

And another. Sage.

The biggest challenge for me is getting decent photos of the black cats. The light isn't good, the cats are in motion and I am not a good enough photographer to deal with it well. I just bought some books on photography and I am going to work at it and maybe redo all my black cat portraits. This one came out the best that day at 1/60 shutter speed. ISO 1600 and f5.6. It did not look good in my camera but looked better when I got it in the computer. I end up using a high ISO because of the lighting but I try to go lower in the shelter when it will work. This is Odessa and she has wonderful soft fur that doesn't translate to this photo.

Another from the cheese group, named Curry.

And Tonka. Boy, if you want a nice big cat this boy is a twenty pounder and its not fat. With personality to boot.

And my favorite and the one in my I'd take you home in a second list. Victor is a kitten, he and his mom were found wild and he is thinking about how he is going to deal with this new situation. Look at those eyes. There is a feline person there.

The Cats of Rockhouse Mountain Farm

2008-12-20T05:23:00.000-08:00

This is a story I wrote about the spay neuter clinic I help with PR. It ran in the local paper. There are lots of photos which follow. These are the folks who do the difficult work of helping lower the number of homeless animals and seeing they get medical care. These barn cats will live out their lives at their farm in peace. They are fed and sheltered. I didn't post the photo of the vet because I wasn't sure if he would want me to. But he is a wonderful guy who loves cats. He has three but would like six (his wife says three is the limit). We talked about how these wild cats are every bit as deserving of care and respect as our spoiled pets. And we agreed that every single one is an individual.
Here's the story. Lots of photos below.

Once there was a farm. It was a large farm, with fields and woods, a bed and breakfast and a barn. In the barn were cows. And cats.

Twice a day the farmer milked the cows and the cats gathered around the pans of milk. The cats lived a wild, free and dangerous life. They caught the mice eating the farmer's grain. They slept in the hay. They roamed the woods. Every spring there were kittens.

People came to stay at the farm in the summer time. They tamed the kittens and took them home, to live safe lives as family pets. And so the number of cats in the barn stayed about the same.

Then the bed and breakfast closed. The cows were sold. There were kittens born with no one to tame and adopt them. Suddenly there were more cats, the cats were growing feral, and some of them were pregnant.

"I've got a gang for you," John Edge said to Roz Manwaring at the Eaton Village Store while they discussed the Rozzie May Animal Alliance and the low cost spay/neuter services it was offering to the community.There were over twenty cats in the barn at Rockhjouse Mountain Farm. By the time the next breeding season came around there would be more kittens. Edge was getting concerned about the expanding population and wanted to do something about it. He trapped eight male cats and brought them to the Rozzie May Animal Alliance clinic for Tom Cat Day in April. But the travel and strange environment of the clinic was very stressful for these wild and semi wild felines, who would hurt themselves frantically trying to get out of their carriers. Edge brought three more to another clinic. But there were still more in the barn.

The RMAA came up with a plan to help the cats and the farm. If it was difficult to bring the cats to the clinic, the RMAA would bring the clinic to the cats. With Edge's willingness to sponsor the clinic and trap the cats, a clinic was planned for on location at the farm.

First, Roz and John met at the farm and looked over spaces where a clinic could be held. They chose the basement of the Inn. Next, Roz had to find a doctor willing to do this kind of clinic. Dr. Steve Caffrey of Fryeburg Veterinary Hospital said he would love to help and December 10th was on the calendar. Then Roz decided on the RMAA team for the clinic. Head RMAA Tech Stephanie Macomber, and experienced vet techs Kim Zulker and Kristy McNulty were available. It was especially important to have a knowledgeable team running this clinic as these were not going to be easy cats to handle, ranging from almost tame, curious kittens, to the queen of the barn, known as the Tasmanian Devil.

Two days before the clinic,(because of approaching bad weather) Roz and Stephanie delivered the RMAA surgical equipment to Rock House Mountain Farm. The next day Roz delivered 11 cat carriers to the barn.

On the day of the clinic the team arrived in the early morning and set up a day surgery. John Edge started even earlier, offering canned food to entice the cats into crates and carriers. After four hours of surgery altering six females and seven males, with all felines safely on the way to recovery, the team packed up and carried everything back out to the van. Roz and Stephanie returned the equipment back to Albany Town Hall, the RMAA's winter "home."

The next day Roz returned to collect the cat carriers from the barn. The surgical laundry had been washed, dried, fluffed and folded by Edge.

A clinic like this could not happen without the veterinarians and others who offer their skills. Dr. Steve Caffrey, Dr. Scott Johnson and Dr. Kate Battenfelder from Fryeburg Vet Hospital, Dr. Julie Dolan of the Sandwich Vet Hospital, Dr. Kjersten Morrison and Dr, Monique Kramer, from Maine, are on board for future planned clinics.

Also crucial was the support from John Edge, who cared about his barn cats at the farm, was instrumental in supporting the clinic, and who spent hours trapping the cats and assisting the vet techs handling them.

And the RMAA team who volunteered their skills and time for no other reason than to help lower the numbers of homeless cats arriving in shelters.

Why it is necessary to spay and neuter cats? Because cats have an incredible capacity for reproduction. A female kitten will be ready to breed sometime between four and nine months of age. The gestation period is around nine weeks and one female can have up to five litters a year with the average number of kittens in a litter being three. A cat can get pregnant while still nursing kittens and can continue to have litters all during her life. Litter mates will then breed with each other. One breeding pair can quickly overwhelm any living situation. And spaying and neutering lowers the chances for diseases such as Feline Leukemia and Feline Immunodeficiency Virus.

What does the future hold for the cats of Rockhouse Mountain Farm? They will continue to live their lives the way they always have, in the barn at the farm. There may still be a litter of kittens next spring. With a total of 24 cats altered there are still a possible three that eluded capture. If a litter of kittens appears in the spring, they can be tamed and adopted, and the mother spayed and returned to the barn. Over the next few years, the numbers will go down because outdoor cats have a much shorter lifespan than family pets. At some point the farm will have the three or four mousers it needs.

And if you are in need of a good barn cat or two or three, call John Edge. He can help you out.

Kim and Kirsty, vet techs.

Kim with a sleepy barn man cat. You couldn't hold him like this if he were awake.

The farmer was thrilled to be taking care of his cats and he was there every minute helping out.

Here they are getting a feline into position for a sleepy shot. Otherwise, you could not handle them.

He trapped all the cats for the clinic. Here he is waiting with a rope attached to a crate door, waiting for a cat to go in for the tuna inside.

Stephanie, the vet tech for the Rozzie May Animal Alliance.

And Roz herself, who got the whole thing started and whose dedication keeps it going. She is organizing the surgical kits in preparation for sterilizing later.

There is a lot of stuff to be moved in and out for these mobile clinics.

I wanted to pack up this little guy and his twin and take them right home. John (the farmer) asked ," So which one is your car?". Sigh. I wish I could take Dancer home too and give him the attention he needs.

I promise more posting on winter activities soon. Today, a new year and a new president in 19 days. It is 0 degrees out and windy so freeeeeeezing. Harper is under the blankets right now and Ramona down by the wood stove. They got a Fling a String for Christmas.

Ramona Sleeps In

2008-12-13T07:57:00.001-08:00

The cats are no fools. They spend most of their day sleeping by the woodstove or under it. And sometimes Ramona doesn't get up for breakfast until 11am. Lazy Girl.

We are amazed and dazed that the huge ice storm passed south of us and left us with power. Southern NH is a disaster with power out to almost half the population of the state. And it's cold. If you don't have some kind of back up heat up here, well, let's just say it is a good idea. In a long power outage we can manage with just the wood stove and I can light my gas stove with a match.

It was about 15F outside this morning and the driveway is a skating rink. Olof put down some of the sand we collected from Town Hall a few days ago, knowing this mess was on the way. One thing about winter here, overnight your secure footing gives way to slippery patches. You develop a new way of walking, place foot, wait, place next foot, wait. I also have crampons that go onto my boots and I often wear them walking to the studio. Especially if I am carrying my new MacBookPro which has my life's work on it.

Today I'll be sorting through the photo shoot of the clinic held in the barn and writing up the story for, hopefully, the local papers. And I'll post it here when I finish. I was thinking of the barn cats last night when the temperature dipped. They have bales of hay to make nests in and I'm sure they did it.

Winter in the North Country is an adjustment. I have learned that daily exercise is important to keep your circulation up and we have winter outfits consisting of polar fleece, lined jeans and smart wool socks. Thank you whoever invented the smart wool sock and cured me of wet winter feet for ever. Dressed right and in good shape, it feels good to be outside in the cold. Otherwise, we'd be huddling by the stove with the cats all winter.

But it's not great snow to get out in yet. Frozen slush. Or what we call New England Hardpack. We take advantage of bad weather to get indoor work done. If we get ahead there will be time to ski when the good stuff arrives.

Changing of the Season

2008-12-07T05:53:00.000-08:00

So it is winter, really and truly. Where have we been? Nowhere but here, busy. Getting as much contented nothingness as possible as the snow begins. It is covered in white outside and on clear mornings we see alpen glow on Mt. Washington, otherwise know as the Rockpile. It can turn a shocking pink with our late sunrises. Everyone who can sleeps in, Miss Ramona has been known to be up for breakfast around 11AM. The human beans are, of course, up long before that, hitting the exercise bike and the computers. Gotta keep the tuna coming in, yanno.

I've got projects, good ones. I am finishing up a marketing video for our local scenic railroad and starting on a full length video for them about their winter operations. There's a 1921 steam locomotive and it is spectacular when it comes out of the engine house in clouds of steam. There will be a spay/neuter mission to a barn full of, well, barn cats, next week which I hope to get some photos of. Spay/neuter clinics are going on but I don't need to get photos of all of them. However the barn cat story will illustrate how the group (rozziemay.org) is willing to go out and help people with expanding cat populations. This farm for years managed the cat numbers because it was a bed and breakfast. Guests would come, see the kittens and take them home. That kept the numbers to a suitable level. Once the b and b shut down, well, you can imagine how a few breeding pairs can take over. It's going to be a challenging day. We'll see if the farmer manages to catch them all for us.

This little guy was at the shelter on my last visit. The kitten season seems to have slowed down and as many kittens as possible stay in foster care so I don't always know if the ones listed on Petfinder will be there if I go in to take photos. Foster care is better for the young ones. But I will have to make a visit soon since they have a cat listed named Tonka and he is the first one I've ever seen marked XL for extra large. I'll report back after my visit!

Yes, Dancer is still there as far as I know right now. I am sorry that he has not been adopted yet and I check PF all the time, hoping he has been found by someone who will care for him. He needs a special person, he needs attention and understanding, and he needs to get out and play. I have not been able to spend time with him to gauge his personality now but I will try to talk with someone there about him. He was napping during my last visit.

I also have Rosetta Stone for learning French and if I get any free time I can disappear into that quite happily for hours. And I picked up Libba Bray's trilogy, the one that start with A Great and Terrible Beauty. I just love young adult fantasy books and this one is really delicious so I am gliding through the last, huge volume in the series and believe me, I could spend today in front of the wood stove and never look up except for the other things I plan to do today. I can't believe I never picked her books up because I thought they were historical romances. It's the cover with a photo of a young girl in white lace and the title. Because of the title I thought the books were about the Irish revolution in 1920, yanno, Yeats and the Post Office and all that. Or the potato famine. That's it, I really thought the book was about the potato famine, not a wonderful gothic Victorian fantasy complete with a magic country and plots thickening everywhere.

Winter is a lovely peaceful time for us. Everything slows down in the North Country because it has to. You can't go at such a fast pace because the days are shorter, there is no gardening to do and you've got to consider staying warm. We have a lot of indoor computer work to do and the days stick to a plan of get up, drink coffee, exercise, work, lunch, work,dinner, movie, sleep with cats. And as soon as the snow is skiiable, which it is already in some places, we'll be outside in between the work hours on our skis.

So that's it and there isn't much to write about most days except that. Harper and Ramona have adjusted to winter, they sleep more though they still want the door open and they entertain themselves running in and out and yelling that their paws are cold. Olof carried Harper over next door so he could visit Grampa and he liked that, so I will try to do it more often and keep him amused.

If there is anything interesting to write about, I will, but otherwise, stay in touch ya'll. And please excuse me if by the winter fire I lie dreaming.

Winter Morning

2008-11-11T07:27:00.001-08:00

New Mac powerbook, new software (Aperature), new camera card and new stuff to get used to. I can actually work on editing video on this lovely machine, though currently I have to have two hard drives hooked up to it to get my media files. Still, why does it feel more like a game than work if you can do it on a lap top? The touch pad on this is kind of slippery and does things I don't intend but the keyboard is lovely and the screen is fantastic, illuminated and clear. It's one of those one piece Mac's carved out of aluminum. Olof decided I should have it. Another thing I love is that it doesn't cook my legs if I am lying down.

As I was this chilly morning with tiny bits of white floating down. You couldn't call it snow, not really. Looked more like hail. I was guarded on either side by my feline protectors....

Resting on their wonderful heat pads, no electric, these things just reflect their body heat and as soon as I offered them they were happily adopted. Now we wake up most mornings, as the house gets colder, with a feline to each. I had bought one of these for Brendan to ease his elder bones and at that time neither kitten ever dared to trespass. But now they each have their own. I recommend these for any northern cats to make a long winter cozy. Harper and Ramona agree.

Here we are

2008-10-30T05:22:00.001-07:00

Where have we been? Oh,not far. A couple of days at a lovely inn by the sea with the Finnish cousins and the end of autumn around here. Putting the garden to bed, drying apples. I have a new powerbook which means figuring out new things like how the heck do I get my photos from the camera to this one and do I have to use Aperture now and why isn't Photoshop working and why can't I email out a photo from iPhoto. Olof is on a video shoot in Texas which shows you how far I would get with computers on my own.

Roz has run a very successful pet food drive up here and I will post about that too. She came up with a great way to help people keep their pets when they are having a hard time. I think this would work for animal groups everywhere.

For today I will show you some of the latest residences at the shelter and promise to go back to our regular programming.

BTW, Dancer is still at the shelter. He is not happy about it and yes, this complicated and wonderful feline really needs a home with someone who wants to give him attention. He still chirps but you out there, he needs you. You can check the CAHS Petfinder page to see who is in. I will try to get down there today and fill in those missing pages.

Teddy (I have to go back and get a better photo of him if he is still there. A moving target!)

Rascal

Pishi (she is a senior and had to be surrendered. Along with Celia, below)

Ping

Gandolf

Fitz

Essence (she was found wandering around downtown)

Celia

Alice (she has a cold and I will take another photo if her eyes have cleared up)

Aden

Border Patrol

2008-09-30T08:16:00.001-07:00

Every morning someone has to do border patrol. The felines have learned to wait and watch until the first quadrant is secure.

Olof does the back yard in front of the house and then makes his way around the fence while they watch him.

He's heading up the hill and at this point they go out, knowing the back section of the yard is safe for cats.

In hunting news, Harper brought in a poor little chipmunk one day and I rescued it. The next day he caught it again and sorry, killed it. I guess it didn't learn the lesson to stay on the other side of the fence like many of them do. Ramona then brought in another which she managed to get up to the bedroom and let it go. I still haven't found it so I think it got out, since we still have the door to the yard open most days. The cats are out from about 8 AM to 5 PM when they come running in to my whistle for dinner and crash out. It's a busy day here at Caturday.

September

2008-09-28T04:44:00.000-07:00

September is my favorite month. Before global warming September was beautiful even though we would have had a killing frost by now and the garden would have been over. But now it's like a gift of another month of summer. The tourists are gone, the kids are back in school and the days are filled with golden light. Except for today when we're getting rain from the storm. The grey sky only makes the brillant reds and yellows stand out more. July was rain soaked this year (maybe another warming trend change) August went by too quickly with work but September has been a month to savor.

I stopped by the shelter but things are calming down a bit there and the six kittens I thought I needed to photograph are already spoken for. I took a few shots because they are the most beautiful family I have seen since the Cheddars but I didn't want to spend a lot of time in the room with them since they have all had URI's and were getting more medication that day. The little grey one is the smallest kitten I have ever seen for that age. You can judge her size by her littermate cuddled up to her. And her eyes are a bit mucky from the cold. But she is a feisty little creature and should do well as she grows.

I should go back and get more photos of this gang just because they are so gorgeous. They were playful and curious, rolling around their room like a gang of kids. These photos were taken through a glass door and I was surprised at how well they turned out. This guy is staring at me through the door with his paws resting on the frame.

And this one stopped for a second before running off to join the games.

If you're a kitten anything will do for a cave or a fort or a castle to climb on.

This is a photo of Little One when the family first arrived. Her eyes are half closed because of her cold. But she is as spunky as the rest. I wish I had a matchbox to put next to her so you could see how tiny she is. About the size of a chipmunk at that time. She is bigger now and has filled out some. Then she was just the scrawniest thing.

This handsome fellow is Starsky. He has been waiting at the shelter for quite a while for a special person because he is FIV positive. He is a sweet friendly fellow who has been feeling a bit low because of a problem in one ear. That seems to be healing up and he's been more chipper lately. He badly needs someone to come take him home. He loves attention and cuddling, even though he looks a bit stern in this photo.

Some good shelter news: the wonderful Hercules, who is also FIV positive, has found a home with a kind elder man near me. This man had adopted another FIV positive cat who died. He was a bit concerned about Hercules being so young (2) and himself being 80 but it is a good situation for the amiable Herc who really just wanted someone to care for.

I have been reading an excellent book on being a vet. It's called Tell Me Where It Hurts and is written by Dr. Nick Trout who is a vet at Angell Memorial in Boston, Mass. It's hard for me to tell you how good it is, but I highly recommend it because of how he writes about our relationships with our beloved animal companions. My favorite line was when he called the communication between an old man and his dog "contented nothingness". That is so perfect a description of how I feel cuddled up to Harper and Ramona. As soon as I touch them a soft rumble begins and either one of them just exudes happiness and peacefulness when we are close together. Dr. Trout understands how much animals give us.

Words do fail me here so again, get this book if you can. Ask your local library to get it.

Patient Mona

2008-09-14T05:43:00.001-07:00

Ramona has been spending hours and hours sitting in one small area of the yard just behind the house. We thought maybe it was just a nice place for a cat to sit, protected, shady. But no, there is more on her mind....

It is probably hard to see but there is a snug little home dug out of the stone wall. And on further examination, there are quite a few more.

This explains the Patient Ones endless vigil. These photos were taken starting at 9 AM and the last ones at 6 PM. In the same spot.

I know you're in there. I can hear you.

Sigh, time for a bath.

Whattsat?

I am listening.

I get into attack position.

Gosh, where'd you go?

Sonar down.

Sigh, no banana.

There it is! I hear it! I'm gonna getcha.

Or was it over there?

No, it is in that direction.

Really really this time.

Focus, Mona, focus. Move slow. Silent.

Don't make a noise.

Ready position.

Closer, closer.

Hmmm, think I'm losing it.

Ah well, tomorrow is another day. Time for dinner.

Shelter News

2008-08-30T18:06:00.001-07:00

This is Penny, isn't she sweet? She just arrived, all on her own but she isn't afraid.

This little girl came in with a family group of about seven cheddars. They were still rather shy when I came in for photos.

This is Ike, one of Whimsey's seven kits. She is a very calm, laid back momcat and all the kittens take their cues from her.

Tammy. She had been at the shelter a long time when I first started there. She was adopted out and was gone for a year. A few days ago she was found abandoned. She is pretty confused about things. I thought they loved me, she says.

Another one of Whimsey's litter of seven.

Sweet Tucker has been adopted and will be going home on Tuesday. This time we hope the people don't have any silly dogs. Tucker is a love of a big boy and just wants to be with someone.

Buddy, one of the cheddar group.

Julie, who is very very pregnant and will have kits soon. I bet they will be beautiful.

Another one of the cheese family. These are two litters of different ages.

And Mandy, in a thoughtful pose.